Almost Married
by Altalen
Summary: AU. After a traumatic engagement with Kouga, Kagome is now getting better with Miroku... or is she? Now that he's given her a new ring, she's afraid that the whole thing will be a mess! And friends are goin crazy! [MirKag]R&R Reeditted


**Almost Married **

By Altalen 

Got the idea from: Tara FT Sering 

Altalen: this is set in my homeland, the Philippines ! :D 

**IMP!!! **Hi! :) I'm new as you all might have known. This is a Mir/Kag and my first fic ever! Please be nice and give me feedback! :) Also, Kag is sisters with Rin here and not Souta. :) In my fic you get to experience being in Kag's shoes, kinda! Read and review! :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing here. Nothing at all. Nada. Zich, so please no flames and complaints. 

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**INTRODUCTION:** **How to deal with yet another June **

First, drop the old habit of pretending that it doesn't bother you and admit to yourself, finally, that you're a sap for love. That even if you like making cynical remarks about how Pinoy men have a hard time spelling the word "faithful" and that, generally, they think fidelity is an inhuman requirement—much like submitting stool samples on demand—you still find yourself being moved to tears when you hear about home some guys proposed to the girl he knew he would end up marrying the first time he laid eyes on her. 

That, in fact, when you're about to get your period, weddings make you as emotional as TV soaps, complete with inexplicably crying torrential tears and pounding on the pillow/reading old love letters/rearranging furniture/watching the televised wedding of Donita Rose to a childhood friend (your friend Rae stayed up late one night to catch it on TV, recorded it and presented it to you as a 28th birthday gift). And that lately, while waiting for 114 to finally answer your call, your default doodle is that of your wedding gown, your maid of honor's dress as well as your entire entourage's, your mother's gown, Miroku's mother's dress, your bridal bouquet, plus a half-done flower girl's outfit—by this time, usually, the ringing stops and an operator finally comes. 

When your boyfriend of one year, Bert Miroku Reyno, happily presented you with an invitation to his sister's wedding, you dreamily ran a hand over the white satin paper envelope. The flap was, rather disturbingly, embossed with a large ribbon and two doves pulling at the strings. And on the invitation, there were about a hundred people listed in the entourage, barely outnumbering the quotations on love and how two strangers meet and become one, thank you so much mom and dad and Aunt Kaede, the matchmaker, if not for your persistence in holding Filipino cultural nights and having American friends witness the pageantry, two soul mates would not have found each other in this big, crazy world. 

On a normal day, this kind of invitation would have been an assault on your personal aesthetics. Recall how, for fun, you like to gather your friends—Kikyo and Inu Yasha living next door, Yura and her boyfriend Onigumo or something—to laugh over gaudy wedding invitations of college friends. Kikyo herself sent out carnation pink invites to her own wedding, but now she claims her judgment had been much blurred by a series of crash diets (all of which did not work) just to fit into her bridal gown. Later on, your ex-boyfriend Kouga, with whom you attended Kikyo's wedding, had a lot to say about the way Kikyo looked that day, mostly snide comments—involving sticky rice folded into banana leaves and popping boobs—that were nonetheless funny and true. 

Accept the fact that you've become twice more cynical about marriage than you were back then, no thanks to Kouga. 

Today, however, you are genuinely moved by the effort—doves, ribbons, credits and quotes—and you say, "It's so beautiful." 

Miroku, giving you a weird look-- says you must be going mad, he has never seen such a cheesy invite even if it's his sister's and he never knew he had so many relatives that they practically form a family forest. Hit him with the envelope and call him a cold-hearted cynic, even if you agree, he does have an inordinate amount of family members. Imagine getting married to him; how many of his relatives, _que horror_, would you have to invite? 

He says, "You have enough pads? I can run to the store and buy some packs." When he returns to your apartment, he finds you sitting in front of your TV watching Donita Rose tearfully deliver her wedding vows, so he says, "Not again", and walks past you, adding, "I got you Moddess Regular Maxi with wings—they're out of Ultra Thins. Talk to you after your period, Kag." 

Admit, once and for all, that weddings reduce you to mush, sometimes make you weepy with envy, until the whole experience of watching someone else walk down the aisle towards the man of her dreams becomes as unbearable as a migraine or a toothache. That sometimes, during long wedding homilies that might have been the standard issue during the 1950s—about how a woman should love and serve her husband and, in return, her grateful husband ought to shower her with love, that's it—that's it, you tune out and imagine your dream wedding by the sea, complete with a string quartet, plump and cuddly flower girls who smile and don't cry, ring bearers who don't wander off the aisle and deliver the rings zombie-like to their parents, well-dressed and well-behaved relatives who smile congenially at each other and who do not drunkenly accost waiters for yet another glass of whiskey, distant aunts who are perfectly coiffed and who do not wear deep purple eye makeup and remove their shoes under the tables, Miroku in an elegant Armani or whatever--spinning you around in your white strapless gown for your first dance, Miroku slicing the cake and feeding you a mouthful (hopefully not choking you to death), and—in a surprise number during the dancing—Miroku suddenly taking over the mike to sing a song he wrote for you. Caught off-guard, you are awash with happy tears. 

Blech. 

Never mind if you can't, even in your fantasy, imagine him singing an acoustic original a la John Mayer—he has a deeply rooted inclination to love songs delivered half-screaming with his eyes closed, and one foot in front of the other so that he looks like he's about to propel himself off the stage faster than you can say, "Don't, sweetheart!" 

Be happy that, alas, Miroku does not seem like the marrying type, perhaps just the kind you need after you previous relationship ended miserably a year ago. Recall bitterly how your officemate & ex-boyfriend, Kouga, to whom you were seriously committed for three years, proposed marriage to you right in the middle of sex. Recall how you were so sure you wanted to marry him, and how you announced it to the world almost with a megaphone. 

Later on, you found out that he was cheating on you with Ayame, another officemate, someone you know, someone you actually used to have lunch with, someone who used to call up late at night to wax philosophical about why one should stay a virgin until the wedding night. They had been screwing each other for months, you discovered, even when you and Kouga were already engaged, and they had at some point, done it in the office under the pretense of overtime work. 

You can't believe what a clueless recessive-more like doggy-to-master-obedient girlfriend you were to Kouga. And now Ayame have just recently given birth to a mini-Kouga—you sometimes forget about this bit of Kouga Episode, mostly because you can't believe they've lasted together for almost a year. A low blow to your ego, but you know you'll survive. 

Recall how incredibly painful and protracted the whole breakup process was—something you were so sure you would never recover from—until you decided you deserved someone with a sturdier spine. Then you met Miroku, definitely the man, but for a considerable number of years he was believed to be a): gay, thanks to a traumatic six-year relationship with a college girlfriend, b) a little cuckoo, thanks to a traumatic adventure race that damaged his nerves c) a kind of drifter, one who dabbled in a number of careers trying to find a perfect fit. 

"So he's a loser," you dad likes to conclude whenever he grills you about your new boyfriend. He can't quite believe you're another relationship after a near-death experience with Kouga, someone your dad, although he never admitted it, secretly liked for you. Kouga fashioned himself to be a numbers guy and went to work in neckties—with Disney characters printed on them. 

Your friend Kagura says any 30-year-old who wears those ties must be retarded and true enough, Kagura likes to say, "Kouga has the emotional age of a 15-year-old, all hormones zipping all over the place that he has to stick his dick into the nearest hole. Is he seatmates with Ayame?" 

In defense of Miroku, you like to correct your dad with, "He's just a late-bloomer, dad." 

Your sister Rin, staunch ally of Miroku mostly because of shared love for _Sex and the City, Six Feet Under and Michael Jackson_, says, "Miroku has so many interests, dad, he's a jack of all trades." 

"Master of none," your dad declares betweens sips of cerveza. He must always have the last word, so he adds. "So he is a loser." 

At this point your mom usually tells your dad to quit it, but in practically the same breath she almost always adds, "That Linda Alvarez's son from _US_ is here. Maybe you should tour him around, he's gorgeous." 

Resist the urge to roll your eyes at her and to remind her that her definition of gorgeous is a little date. Stuck in… 1952. Your mom thinks the height of good looks is the Ken doll, so of course Miroku with his slight stubble and Garfield eyes—not to mention his I'm-set-for-my-adventure-race fashion sense of khaki cargo pants and blue and white baseball shirts—is nothing else but a wayward child. To you Miroku is the ultimate lovable lean machine--kinda perverted, though, but to your parents, he's the kind who makes them go, _"Tsk, tsk, kids these days are very different from the past." _

Realize that the drifter rumor about Miroku is kind of true. When most of the other guys your age are getting comfy in their corporate offices and growing beer bellies and sort of trying to settle down (read: looking for that 'nice girl' to marry, as well as for that hot chick they can have an occasional fling with), Miroku is still giddy as a fresh-out-of-college kind trying to decide what he wants to do for the rest of his life. And he's still looking. He says that for years he hasn't been too honest about what he wants in life, not because he finds lying an especially attractive exercise in imagination and creativity, but because he doesn't really know what it is he really wants, or wants to be. 

For instance, before the two of you became a couple, he was singing acoustic ballads in some grill with only half his heart in it—his real passion is alternative or modern rock, sort of like how it was in high school, except that heavy metal is louder. He likes to say that your experience with Kouga—which made you realize that you wanted better things for yourself, things you claimed and got—has inspired him to seek the same. 

Miroku likes to call himself a work in progress, and only a few preferences are clear to him so far, among them: modern rock, women's fashion (when asked for an opinion, he knows what works on you and what makes you look like you're determined to run away with the circus), free speech, _Sex and The City, sinigang and kadyos _during a thunderstorm. 

You find his honesty about not know what he exactly wants quite moving, except on days when you're about to get your period and you're not sure if he's absolutely clear about you. If he's not really sure about all the things he pursues, how does he know he's sure about you? And how can he act so convincing and sincere when he says, "I love you" to you as often as he absently murmurs "Thanks" when a cashier hands him his change? 

Switch off the TV, march outside your room into the kitchen where Miroku is marking the invite for relatives he has actually already met, and say, "Do you love me?" 

Without looking up, Miroku says, "You want a Midol? And who's this, Angelina Jolly?" 

_"Seriously..." _

"_This is serious. What _a name, I hope she's even just half as hot, otherwise, bad trip to have such a name!" 

"Wow, like you're name's not Bert Reyno. At least Angelina Jolie's currently in. Eh, Burt Reynolds is so 155 years go." 

Scour the cupboards for a pack of salted dry fish or a bottle of garlic dried fish you might have stashed somewhere—the heavy June downpour is making you long for the good old Goodah days of college. A craving for anything salty and heaps of rice is threatening to take over your sense of reason. Slam the cabinet doors when you don't find any, and study the contents of your ref with the door wide open. Nothing there but…half an onion and open cans of Coke Lights. 

Miroku says, "What's wrong? What's bothering you? This isn't normal PMS behavior." 

Realize that he's right: you're irritable for no apparent reason (work is good, savings account no longer a humming panic of zeros, parents in the pink of health), you're ready to snack on rock salt, and you've just cried your eyes out over a tacky invitation and a televised wedding. Realize that it only means one thing: PMS during marrying month of June, at 28 years old. 

"Sorry hon, I--" 

"Ha! And who's this Ricky Martin-Estacio suppose to be?" 

Decide that Miroku's family has quite a fascination with showbiz and international celebrities, and that they're all weird (remember your high school days when he used to ask you if you could bear his child). Hope that Miroku does not carry the wacko streak, even if it's in his name. Wonder if that's a sign of strange things to come. 

As a sort of exercise, try to imagine meeting all of Hojo's relatives for the first time at his sister's wedding. Practice a) suppressing your laughter when they introduce themselves with Hollywood-like names-especially Angelina Jolly, that sounds like real work for you; b) the art of the air kiss which you'll most likely be doing a lot of; c) smiling neutrally when you're asked, for the 103rd time, when you're going to get married yourself, and how old are you again, dear? Late, late twenties? 

Don't forget to go over the more physical aspect of the wedding; the bouquet toss. Mentally review Kagura Stance, a.k.a. Slight-Upper Body-Lean in, formulated by your sex-fiend best friend at the office, Kagura. Kagura's love for sex borders on the exaggerated and sometimes you think that if she could afford to maintain a den of male sex slaves, she would be happy for the rest of her life. 

"I eat, breathe, sleep great sex," she likes to say while biting cocktail cherries of their stems. You've been friends long enough to know that sometimes, Kagura the Sex Goddess is all an act, a 23-hours-a-day stage play with one hour in the dead of the night to become honest enough to admit, "Sigh, Kag, when will I find true love?" She then takes a drag form her cigarette before coughing and quickly adds, "Not a word of this to anyone, OK?" 

The Kagura Stance is simple enough: Once gathered with the rest of the single shy-Pinay populace, all running their palms in hesitation other their skirts and pretending to be nonchalant and non-expectant of the outcome, position yourself in the middle of the mob-not in the extreme sidelines nor at the back, and definitely not middle-front where everyone can see you looking nervous and hopeful. 

When the bouquet is tossed, make a slight yet apparent lean forward with your arm half-extended. Do not move your feet. This makes for a neutral, Woman of the New Millennium look: Not too eager to get hitched, nor ridiculously anti-marriage that you can't even be game enough for age-old traditions. You will appear; Kagura guarantees, as cool about love and marriage as she is. 

Kagura herself professes to be the non-marrying type, not that the love of her life and ex-boyfriend Naraku, on whom she cheated, is about to marry a woman who appears to have been groomed for marriage all her life: soft voice, small smile, demure laugh, non-smoker, slight drinker (cocktails with umbrellas or light beer only, no pale pilsen or draft), shoulder-length hair. 

Conclude that of course Kagura is bitter; until middle of last year; she was calling you at strange hours to dissect, yet again, what went wrong with her relationship, what compelled her to scurry into the broom closet und the stairs of her apartment and have sex, standing up, with a man she had just met-the broom closet where, right middle of her climax, Naraku found them. 

You like to say it was simple enough-she cheated on Naraku, he dumped her, end of story-but Kagura prefers to "get to the root of it all", as though, years later after her broom cabinet encounter, and after Naraku had already met and fallen in love with someone else, she still had a fighting chance of getting Naraku back. Fortunately, thanks to her new open-dating arrangement with Arnaud, a Frenchman with whom she gets along swimmingly mostly because of a shared penchant for sexual experimentation, she seems to be getting over Naraku. 

Miroku is done with his checklist-he hasn't met more than half his relatives, and suspects they might be the California, USA contingent who will arrive next week along with his sister Misao and her husband-to-be, an Irish-American-Bulgarian named Josh. 

He puts the invite back in the envelope and sticks it to the ref with an apple magnet. He takes your hand and says, "If you dress up in 15 minutes, we can go to Tagaytay and eat some Tawilis*. You like that?" 

You may find it a little difficult to not be charmed by such a sweet gesture that's characteristically Miroku. Put up a little fight with, "Are you nuts? Tagaytay* is so far." Although it annoys you when his patience sometimes makes it clear who the bigger person is, you can't help but get mushy and give in to all the sweetness. 

"So?" he says patiently, "I'm driving and you can gripe about the world all you like." 

"But it's raining so hard…" Watch your meager defenses fall by the wayside. You are, you know it, so in love with Miroku that until now, you sometimes find yourself smiling dreamily over how you met: at a wedding, of all occasions, after years of not seeing each other since high school, and then while jogging at ULTRA during those grim days of trying to get over Kouga the Cheat. You have fainted that day, Miroku took you home to your parents in Laguna. Your parents are not as surprised as you are, since he came over regularly when you were in high school to ask about your health. 

Everything just fell into place afterwards: how he slept over at your place without trying to score against you will, and how, a couple of months later when you finally decided to sleep with him, you had soft of review your childhood for all the good things you must have done-what did you do to deserve multiple orgasms at one a.m., lying down or standing up or sitting astride him? And he's actually, a year later, getting better, not to mention wildly creative. 

The whole thing is still making you all giddy and giggly that you can't believe he's your boyfriend. That he's nearly a permanent fixture in your apartment that he's here now. In your apartment. In your kitchen. Willing to drive in the heavy downpour all the way to the far south because he knows that you're looking for even when you don't say it. 

Don't try to edit yourself; say, "You know what; I think I'm in love with you." 

Watch Miroku smile his signature slow and lazy smile that's so sexy it makes your belly flop. He leans in, "You know what, I'm really in love with you. Get dressed." 

In Tagaytay, back in the bliss of warm couple hood. Decide that this is definitely payback for having endured terrible heartache. After large servings of tawilis and rice, Miroku suggests waiting out the downpour parked by a deserted shed along the ridge. No one else is out today because of the heavy rain and thick fog, and suddenly, you feel like sliding up to Miroku and whispering coyly into his ear with your breath hot and heavy. 

When Miroku switches the radio station playing old school R and B, realize he has the same thing in mind. Bite your lower lip as he casually rests a meaningful hand on your knee. He looks out the windshield and out his window to see if anyone is around, talking absently about the weather and what a nice, bright day it is. Notice that it's dark and purple outside and that coconut trees are practically getting uprooted by the storm. Smile to yourself; you've always fantasized about fooling around with Hojo in the great outdoors, so even if you can't really see anything outside because of the heavy rain (and that technically you're not outdoors), shift sexily in your seat. 

Miroku's hand squeezes your knee and travels up your thigh, and when he finally faces you, he is grinning like the typical Hollywood movie bad guy. The thing with Miroku is that he knows exactly when you're in the mood for an intense, head-thrown-back-moaning-and-laughing kind of romp. 

Today he senses you're in the mood for villains who don't give a shit about time and place and expensive clothing, and as you both recline your seats, he wastes no time in lunging for you, climbing on top of you, ripping off your linen top, breathing heavily down your neck, and slipping his warm, hungry hands under you're your shirt, your pants, your underpants. He nibbles you ear and playfully blows into it-he knows you get tickled to blissful death by that, and suddenly you're a bubbling heap of shrieks and giggles, oohs and aahs. 

Slip your hand under his pants and feel him hard and swollen. He closes his eyes and looks lost in pleasure, and when he finally opens them, he freezes. 

"What? What's wrong?" 

He swallows. "Honey, we didn't fog up the windows enough…" 

"What???" 

His face stiffens and he closes his eyes. He can't speak. 

Get up and turn to see that the rain had stopped and that a white coaster had driven up behind the car. It appears that everyone in it is plastered to the large windshield, so that all you see is a wall of gaping faces-men and women, who, you imagine, are all over 60. They look shell-shocked. 

A little more action and some of them might have croaked and flipped back into eternal sleep. When you and Hojo button up and drive-away red-faced and ready to burst out laughing hysterically, you catch a glimpse of the streamer on the side of the small bus. It reads: "Senior Citizens of the Philippines Getting To Know You Day Tour." 

"You think we were inspiring enough?" Miroku asks on the drive home. 

You still can't believe you did it in front of a live audience. "I think so," you concede. "We were hot. But shit, I can't believe we did it in public," 

He takes your hand. "That's okay, sweetie. Think of it a super major PDA." When the laughter subsides, he adds, "At least that's one more thing you can cross off your to-do list." 

Understand that for other girls, it might be tougher to deal with June. Take Kagura, for instance, who has, strangely, taken to planning Naraku's wedding in a kind of unofficial and unknown capacity. Feel a little freaked out by the stack of wedding magazines piled high on her desk next to her computer, and by a checklist of wedding must-do's for the bride (ripped form a copy of Bride & Home) tacked on her corkboard. 

Realize she has actually checked some boxes and decide this is already a cause for alarm. On a small white board beside the corkboard is a countdown of the number of days left till Naraku's wedding. As of today: 34. You find it all so painful to watch, and that your cubicles are adjacent to each other is no help to your own self-denial: Kagura is not weird, Kagura is not weird, Kagura is not-are those sample swatches of white lace??? 

Be a friend, and over a takeout lunch today in your office cubicle, remind her she's not even invited. 

She stops chewing a mouthful of a chicken tuna sandwich from Oliver's, rolls her eyeballs and slouches theatrically in exasperation. Slowly, she says, "Yeah-hah… but I was informed. Naraku called me to tell me he was getting married. He informed me himself." 

Hold up an index finger before picking up another cheese stick. "Informed. Not invited. Two different things. Did you finish college?" 

"My Kami, it's over a month to go before the wedding," she says, and turns to her cubicle to take a peek at the checklist. "The invitations aren't even done yet, so how can you say for sure I'm not even invited? He already told me, so maybe the invite is still on its way, what do you think? Miss I'm So Happily Coupled?" She slams her sandwich on the table and starts to pack her half-eaten lunch. 

"Kagura," you say. "I know you're happily dating Arnaud-well, sort of-but this thing with Naraku is a little too quirky for me. You're planning his wedding to someone else behind his back. And hers-do you even know her? Have you even met her? And why do you make it sound like I'm so smug about Miroku?" 

Atasuke, another senior copywriter with a very Harley-Davidson fashion sense-black shirt with sleeves ripped off, tucked into tight black jeans black Versace belt with a round engraved-silver buckle, pointy boots, red bandana over his long hair, half-grown goatee-walks by. His favorite past time is making lewd passes at Kagura ("Miss, I LAB you, ken I table u?" or nodding approvingly with, "Hmm, S and M, I like it" [which is so grammatically wrong]). If you had psychic powers, you would've stopped a crushing blow from hitting Kagura right on the forehead. You would've averted a catastrophe, had you know it was coming. Instead, you watch helplessly as Atasuke, sounding like a recorder running low on battery, says, in slow warped motion, _"Heeey, yooou're eeeex iiiiiis geeeettiiiing maaaarriiiiied. Iiiii juuust gooot myyyy invitaaaation yesterrrdayyyy. Pretty claaassssyyyy."_

Kagura drops her sandwich to the floor. Watch her attempt to stand and fail, falling to the floor on her ass. There's a loud splatter as her plastic cup of banana shake drops as well. She's stunned and wide-eyed, her bare legs (Kagura is infamous in the whole ad agency for redefining micro mini) splayed on the floor. Try not to panic, even if Atasuke is a wind mill of "'fucks" on acid. 

_"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,"_ blurts Atasuke. "What the fuck happened?" 

Kagura, senior copywriter and soon-to-be assistant creative director, who likes to write her height down in official document as 5'6" because she's perpetually in three-inch heels anyway even in the shower and almost always during sex, has never had a no-poise moment at work. She struts down the office corridor almost to an invisible Madonna anthem like "Music" or "Vogue". Her lids are almost always half-closed Greta Garbo-style and, when not talking loud or laughing with her head thrown back and mouth wide open that you get a nice comfortable view of her tonsils, she always wears a smirk. 

Understand that only a select few are privy to the rare moments Kagura loses her composure, and Atasuke, not being one of the,, is currently flabbergasted by the sight of a shocked Kagura, sitting on the floor looking like the wind had been knocked out of her, banana shake all over her legs. 

Understand that June may be harder still, for other girls. Girls like your good friend and next-door neighbor Kikyo, who, after a year and a half being married to Inu Yasha, appears to be having second thoughts. She likes to knock on your door at six a.m. and sit by the kitchen counter to lament the breakdown of her marriage in vague, incoherent phrases in between heavy sighs. 

Clutching a cup of coffee, fighting off tears, she says, "It's so hard…" Sigh… and you think… _'It is???'_

She takes a bite off a cracker, chews so absently that crumbs escape from her mouth and says, "What a mess…." Sigh. 

She takes a sip from the cup and says, "…. it's like, can't breathe…" Sigh. 

She takes another bite and says, looking at the cracker, "What cracker is this? It's real good." Sigh. No wonder she's growing bigger and bigger everyday. Resolve to never succumb to emotional eating when you're in a crisis. 

And even when you're truly tempter, don't dare ask if she thinks Inu Yasha is having an affair, or if she's seeing someone on the sly. Ever since you've known Inu Yasha and Kikyo they have always been fighting, so much you think it's the boxing match keeping the two of them in the ring. They like to fight in public too, and solicit opinions from unfortunate companions, trying to rally as many friends to agree with his or her point. You've so far mastered the art of remaining neutral, having realized that even if commando knives, they would surely kiss and make up the following day. So don't falter now. 

Even if you realize something is definitely different about the present scenario, hold your tongue: They're not actually fighting, nor have you heard any late night screaming matches in the past three or so months. Now it's just Kikyo, sighing, in the early morning hours, and again at 12 midnight when she sneaks out of her apartment in her pajamas. She likes to send you text messages asking if you have company and if not, can she come over? Lately. She's cut to the chase and has been sending messages like, "U hom?", and you know what she wants to come over and be cryptic and sigh. 

Ring Miroku at the restaurant where he works as a chef and call off dinner; say you were up early to listen to Kikyo exhale, and because Kagura refused to talk to you at work it has been quite a tense day. And just yesterday, Miroku's mom phoned, inviting you to a pre-wedding dinner in their home, just to get to know Josh's parents, whom they've never met. Don't be frightened, and don't stress about not having practiced prematurely meeting the clan. Miroku's mom promised it would be an intimate dinner, just family and you. OK, so maybe you should be frightened. Decided that June is an across-the-board difficult month. 

Over drinks at Adobo's Crunchy, a small restaurant specializing in fried adobo flakes, ask some of your friends if they haven't noticed how particularly stressful June has become, now that you are all older. 

"You know I'm gay," says Kenji, "so everyday feels like hetero-June. And yet, we still can't get married, despite my pain." Kenji works with you at the same ad agency and his life is a classic case of irony: Kenji's father is a retired colonel of the army where the rest of his six male siblings also work. Kenji is the youngest boy and is currently dating Winston, another officemate. 

"You think too much," says Winston. "Don't worry about it. You're just perpetually, glamorously troubled, sister!" He pours himself another glass of beer. "You're a fag hag, it's in your nature." 

Decided that perhaps such issues are better discussed with straight friends. At an intimate dinner party celebrating Allen's promotion to general sales manager to a car dealership, his girlfriend, Hana, who looks unbelievably giddy playing hostess to the group, can't seem to stop talking and feels compelled to explore the issue you just broached. 

Except that, being the hostess of the evening, she can't really focus. "Yes, yes, I agree, right really right, what else? Beer? What do you want Kag, vodka tonic? Waiter! Waiter! Arrgh… Seriously, service here super sucks…. What was that again, Kag?" On top of her dinner party multi-tasking, she can't seem to see you very well because of a new shade of contact lenses she's trying. She has to squint and say, "Sorry, I didn't hear." 

"I said, relationship problems of most people seem more pronounced in June—" 

Heiwa helps you along. "Single people in their late twenties still get harassed to get married, couples who got married in June—and there are a lot—being thinking of the state of their relationships, dumped lovers go crazy if their ex lovers are getting married, couples who got married in June—and there are a lot—begin thinking of the state of their relationships, dumped lovers go crazy if their ex lovers are getting married and that happens a lot in June--" 

"Crazy? Crazy?" Hana interrupts and blinks rapidly. "Is this my margarita? Crazy? Allen, what do you want? Is Kagura crazy already???" 

"No," say defensively. Be quick to add, "I wasn't talking about anyone in particular. Just…. Random people." 

Heiwa, who is in law school and knows better, passes you a knowing look. Hana catches it. 

Hana stops pouring Allen and Heiwa's boyfriend, a glass of iced tea and sinks back into her seat. "Oh my Kami. Really? I think I know who's crazy. It's Kikyo, isn't it? That's why she's not here tonight. I knew it." 

"Knew what?" 

Hana resumes her hostess role nonchalantly. She shrugs, "I've always known Kikyo is slowly going nuts trying to adjust to Inu Yasha. He barely makes money—and she makes, whew, a lot." She nods knowingly at everyone else. "I know," she continues, "it's hard to believe Inu Yasha doesn't even have a savings account." 

Her boyfriend Allen is staring at her. "But hon, you don't have one either." 

"That's different. I'm a girl, he's a guy. He should be spending for everything." 

Heiwa and Jason think Hana is shamelessly conservative in her expectations, but Allen, who recently resigned from the family business, sees no problem with being financially dependent on a woman. He believes that of whom much is given, much is expected; if the woman makes more money, then she ought to spend for more of the expenses. Pretty simple, and very biblical. 

"I don't think Inu Yasha is financially dependent on Kikyo," you say. "I don't think that's the problem…. Besides, she's not crazy in this story…." But you own lack of conviction alarms you. 

"Yes, but," Hana whispers conspiratorially and her eyes widen in obvious disapproval, "he eats a lot." 

"Almost all men do," you say. 

Wonder if this is what marriage can sometimes be reduced to—a beer night topic of half-drunk singletons who think they know what it means to commit forever without losing sanity over the gritty specifics, such as an over-eating partner. Feel a bad taste settle in your mouth and decided your friends will not have the chance to discuss your future marriage this way; ergo, decided you will stay single and present beer nights for a long, long time. 

[End of Prologue] 

Altalen: So whaddya think? Not worth continuing or what? Please give me some feedback! Are there any grammatical errors? Oh yeah, some of the grammatical errors are meant to be coz they are pronounced by the chracters that way. 

Tawilis- is a kind of little fish that is fried and very salty—good with vinegar Sinigang- a common food that is slightly sour and sweet with soup and pork 

**_Kadyo_s**- ** pork with beans and raw jackfruit—I myself haven't tried one before but they say it's real good **

** Cerveza-some kind of beer  
  
Tagaytay-is a well-known vacation palce here in my country  
  
Laguna-a place where a lot of people live coz it's a real nice place--lots of resorts wherever you go**_  
  
_


End file.
